Trust But Verify

Trust but verify or become dinner!

In some ways I suppose that being a true believing Christian can hinder fulfilling Christ’s message to the world. Believers (of anything really) rely on their tenets of belief to substantiate the very belief they hold. Approached this way, one has little incentive to challenge one’s own understanding. Rather, the understanding becomes the pillar of proof. There in lies the pitfall.

One’s faith become the proof of one’s faith. Buddha cautioned against this circular blindness by warning folks not to take anything he said on faith. His message was, trust but verify. Trust meaning to keep a positive outlook and an open mind to the possibility there’s at least a kernel of truth in most anything. The only way to separate the wheat from the chaff is to verify through one’s own experience, as the years pass by. One can’t do that when one already thinks that one knows.

Of course, we are biologically set up to accept things on faith. All animals are. All animals (including us) have faith in what their senses tell them about the world they experience. Mosquitoes have faith in their acute sense of CO₂ which guides them to their next meal. Similarly, we have faith that our senses don’t lie. Every instinct tells us that if something tastes good it must be good for us. That what we see ‘out there’ is real. How else would we be so easily hoodwinked by magicians, politicians and the producers of junk food (to name just three). Sure, we may have learned that a magician uses slight of hand, a politician panders, and junk food is not good for us, but instincts pulls us in anyway, at least somewhat.

In the wild, such faith in perception usually favors survival (fitness). Of course, various predators have evolved ways to use this to trap prey. The angler fish (photo above) and fishermen both comes to mind here. Alas, for us, the generally healthy instinct of faith easily warps rational thinking and we end up just hoodwinking ourselves. It is ironic isn’t it, considering that the Tao Te Ching says, Of old those who excelled in the pursuit of the way did not use it to enlighten the people but to hoodwink them.

Oh, so how does a Christian’s faith hinder fulfilling Christ’s message? I’m not really sure. I imagine ‘thinking that one knows’ gets in the way. I doubt any believer would see these connections when it comes to their core beliefs. However, noticing this in others is not only easier, it is irresistible. After all, seeing ‘their’ blind faith mistaken, makes ‘ours’ feel all the more right. If faith was effective, the message would be heard and the world would be different by now. Faith doesn’t enlighten us, it hoodwinks us.